Death of a Hero
by VolcanicPizza
Summary: The zombies invaded, destroying everything. Some time later, Grenade's group is hiding in the Tower in Philadelphia, until zombies attack and kill a member of their group. This story deals with the aftermath of the death and their new expedition, narrated each chapter by a different person. (Formerly a one-shot)
1. Romero

**A/N: This is a one-shot about the zombie apocalypse, set roughly six months afterward the initial invasion. Enjoy!**

"They're coming." Jag says, scratching his head and readying his .22 rifle.

"How many?" asks Bones.

"At least thirty. Maybe more." I respond, focusing through the binoculars.

It's been some time since everything went to hell, but one thing is certain: nothing's the same. Including our names.

Before the zombies came, my name was Paul, Or maybe Jack, I can't really remember. Now, though, it's Romero, because of my obsession with the living dead that made our lives hell. Even before they came, I studied them. Sure, maybe people were inaccurate, but nobody could really guess what they'd be like for real. They were just writing fiction for fun or profit.

"Should we tell Grenade?" asks Jag. Grenade's our leader, so named for his explosive temper.

"We'll try to pick a few off while you tell him." Bones and I pull out our .22s and position ourselves as Jag races down the tower.

We took over the Tower a long time ago, maybe two weeks after they came. It used to be an office building, I think, but now that we've killed all the zombies in it and blocked zombie access to us, it's our base. The Tower. Visible everywhere this eighth of the town.

We're the last _in_ the town, far as we know.

I snipe out a few, dropping .22s through their eye sockets, and the bastards go down, but the other zombies continue plowing ahead.

Grenade races upstairs with Jag. "Shit," he says when he sees the zombies. "Why didn't you guys tell me how many there were?"

Then I see the second wave, hundreds strong, pouring down the road.

"Holy shit." Jag swears. "We're gonna have to pack out."

Grenade nods. "Romero, wake everyone."

I hand him my .22 and race downstairs. I hit the level of offices that we use for our sleeping quarters and run into where Artemis, Wolf, Captain, and Tiger are sleeping. One by one I wake them and give them the news.

Artemis is up instantly, grasping her bow. "I'll go up with Jag and Bones." She races away, but I catch her.

"No, you don't." I say. "We're fighting our way out of here, melee style."

Artemis makes a face. "Why are we always fighting melee?" But she puts away her bow and draws her dagger anyway.

I grab my broadsword, looted from the museum in town, as they pack up their bags.

Grenade, Bones, and Jag come into their rooms and grab their supplies. Wolf, meanwhile, runs to where we keep all the dogs so she can let them free. It sucks that we can't bring them with us, sucks even more how long it'll take to isolate dogs from the wild packs and train them after we've escaped, but that's how shit works sometimes. If we survive a day, it's a good day. That's how it works.

I ready myself for a fight as we pound down the stairs. Bones pulls out the boards, lays them over the gap we made, and launches herself over it. Shaking his head, Grenade follows, and Jag and Wolf go after him. I'm next, trying to hide my sweat and nerves as we cross the gap. I don't see the others cross; I'm too busy wiping my sweat.

"Damn." says Grenade. "We're going to have to literally fight our way out." He pulls out his dual katanas and stabs the air as we see the masses of zombies entering the first floor.

Artemis ditches her dagger in her belt and starts shooting into the zombies with her bow. It's like she's Katniss from the Hunger Games, how good she is. Grenade, Jag, and Bones pull out guns as Captain, Tiger, Wolf, and I race into the midst of the zombies. My broadsword cleaves through flesh and skull and bone as I whip it through zombie after zombie. A line clears, and we race through it.

Grenade and Jag cover our backs as the rest of us walk forwards. The smoky dusk looms above us as the zombies incessantly moan in their path down the street.

"Where'll we go?" asks Bones.

"Anywhere other than here." Captain tells her, whipping his scimitar about.

A smaller zombie horde stands at the end of the road, but we dispatch them quickly and continue on foot. All the cars in the area were firebombed or ran out of gas, so they're out as an option.

Captain swears and points ahead. The larger zombie horde sensed us and has turned towards us, moaning with a thirst for blood and flesh to be spilled.

"Damn!" I shout, slashing at the reaching hands. One pulls at my belt, and I hack its hands off and toss them away.

It's like the zombies are piranhas, the way they chase us. Incessant.

Suddenly, I realize what must be done. I don't want to do it, but there's no choice.

"Run!" I yell. They do, but stop when they see me heading back.

"Go!" I cry. "If one of us has to die to hold them off, let it be me."

"Romero, no, dammit!" shouts Captain, but I'm already wading in the thick of the horde.

"Go!" I scream, tears running down my face, and don't wait to see if they comply. I walk through the zombies, chopping and slicing. My friends are too far away, so they all head towards me, moaning. I feel multiple bites and slashes from their nails opening on my legs, but I pay them no heed. I won't become one of them, not like this.

They pull at me, moaning.

Moaning.

Moaning.

Moaning.

I scream in an emotion I've never felt before and decapitate three of them in one blow. But I can't stop the rest of them.

They press in on me, and they pull, ripping at my flesh. I don't resist as I feel something snap in my leg, although I do scream in pain.

I feel their yellowed, broken teeth biting through me and turning blood-red. I hope my friends got away.

There is no more consciousness, just blackness. The pain from the bites keeps coming, but lessens with each passing second. My body throbs with pain.

I crack my eyes open through blood to see the ground spattered red. The red rises to consume me, and then there is just red.

The red is eaten away at by blackness, and then there is nothing.


	2. Captain

**A/N: So, I was requested to make this a full story, so... here you go.**

 _Shit..._ I think. _Romero's dead._

Grenade's face is pallid; his bravado gone. "He sacrificed himself to save us." he mutters.

I stand and put my scimitar away. It doesn't seem possible that Romero's dead. His cocky grin, his laugh when he figured out something new about zombies... it just doesn't seem possible.

We're standing in the subway tunnel where we fled after Romero died. We jumped the old turnstiles and took cover besides the tracks. We don't know if there's zombies here, but we don't care for now.

Suddenly, my mind is plunged backwards, remembering. Remembering a time when my name was not Captain, but instead Joel Jameson, and there was a train tunnel very similar to this where I also had to hide...

 _"Mom, when does the train leave?" I shouted as we pushed our way towards the boarding train. The government shut down all the aboveground trains, but the underground ones still worked. We were heading out of New Jersey before the infection spread to our home city of Camden, and the train seemed the right way. I had my suitcase, and my little brother Daniel his. Mom had hers, and Dad... Dad had died in a street riot three days back. That was when we decided to move on._

 _"Not now, Joel." Mom looked harried and frustrated as she pushed towards the train. It was headed north, last stop Halifax, Nova Scotia, in Canada. Mom figured Canada would be safe, because they had no cases of infection there yet._

 _As Daniel dragged his suitcase over the steps and I prepared to board, there was a scream, "They're here!" right before the zombies poured into the station like ants from a hive._

 _"No!" I screamed right before the doors closed with Mom and Daniel on the inside and me on the outside._

 _"Let me in, dammit!" I pounded my fists on the metal sides of the train, to no avail. The zombies swarmed towards me at their normal shambling gait, and I screamed again as the train picked up speed and left the station._

 _"No!" I jumped into the middle of the tracks and raced after the train, oblivious to the chaos, only knowing that my mother and brother were on the train and I wasn't._

 _"Damn!"_

 _I dropped to my knees, ignoring the suitcase's weight on my back. "Hopeless." I muttered._

 _I heard the undead behind me, but ignored it._ Better to die now than later when hope comes back. Besides, I don't even have a weapon...

 _And then I remembered that I did. Mom had packed a handgun in my suitcase in case I needed to defend myself._

 _Scrabbling wildly at the outer pocket, panic making my movements erratic, I finally grabbed the pistol's handle. Flicking the safety off, I aimed at the closest one's head, pulled the trigger, and missed, sending the bullet driving into the thing's shoulder. The recoil forced my hand up, and I gasped as I grabbed at my wrist. I tried to move backwards, but my suitcase's weight on my shoulder's caught me and dragged me down. I fell backwards onto the tracks as they closed in._

 _Hopelessness settled in. I was going to die, far from home in a dank subway tunnel, and nobody would even know it until, a hundred years from now when this was all over, some guys would find my skeleton and go, "Hey, what a dumb kid. He got himself stuck in a train tunnel and died. Serves the dumbass right." And then they'd laugh and move on._

 _The first zombie reached out for me and suddenly jerked and collapsed. I scooted backwards just before it fell right where I was. Then I heard it- gunfire._

 _The other zombies fell in like fashion, and a figure emerged from the shadows. "You okay, kid?" he asked in the voice of a young-to-middle-aged man._

 _"Just about." I replied._

 _"Don't come somewhere like this again." he said. "You could get yourself killed. Tell you what," he continued, "maybe I'll help you out. What's your name, kid?"_

 _"Joel." I answered groggily._

 _"Joel, huh?" The stranger laughed, a short, hard bark. "Got any siblings?"_

 _"A younger brother named Daniel."_

 _"I've got a little brother named Daniel too." murmured the man. "Tell ya what, kid. I like how you sound, so I'll help you out. Hold out your suitcase."_

 _I complied, asking suddenly, "How did you know I've got a suitcase? It's dark as bowels down here."_

 _"Wearing night-vision goggles." I heard a tap of fingernail on metal. "Military-grade, too. Won't be blinded by sudden flashes of light." I heard my suitcase unzip, then, after a minute or two, zip back up. "There. That should do it. Got a flashlight in there?"_

 _"Yeah, in the outer pocket."_

 _"Well, use it." I put my suitcase back on as the man continued, "And, one more thing. I can't spare my AK nor my sword, but... Hold out your right hand."_

 _I complied and felt something round and leathery hit it. "What's this?"_

 _"That should help with bashing undead." The man laughed again. "And remember, kid, don't trust anybody else in this world. Not everybody's a nice guy like me."  
_

 _"Thanks, uh..." I realized I didn't even know his name. "What's your name?"_

 _I felt rather than saw him shrug. "I've been called so many names over the years I've lost track of them. Just keep an eye out. You might see your little brother yet."_

 _I heard his footsteps moving off into the darkness, and unzipped my suitcase. Bringing out my flashlight, I saw all sorts of supplies: canned food, a headlamp, bottled water, ammo..._

 _Tears of gratitude filled my eyes. "Thanks, sir!" I called into the darkness, but he was already gone._

 _It wasn't too long after that that I met Grenade and Bones. We crossed over the Delaware, accidentally blowing up half the Ben Franklin bridge en route during an incident involving a burrito, a campfire, and a car's gas tank, and met Artemis in Philadelphia. We gathered our group from the kids in Philadelphia as the zombies encroached on the city, and that was the beginning._

I shake off old memories as I hear footsteps. Gripping the handle of the scimitar that the stranger gave me however long ago it was, one year, two years, I prepare to fight. We've encountered bandits, rogues, and zombies; we're prepared for whoever or whatever comes around the corner.

A single man walks around the corner, a SPAS-12 slung over his shoulder and a club in his hand. "Well, lookee here." he drawls. "A bunch of kiddies, on the way home from Sunday school."

I consider laughing insanely since I don't even think churches or Sunday exist anymore, but instead prepare to fight. Grenade draws his swords, and Artemis notches her bow.

"I'm looking here for some kiddies to sell in the Manhattan Ring, and what does I find here?" he continues. "A bunch of little kiddies, ready for-" He stops short as his eyes open in horror.

"I'd advise you get your worthless carcass off my property, Mr. Ewell." drawls a familiar voice. "I have no idea where I can find paint to patch it up."

Ewell looks terrified. "I can handle you in a fair fight, X. You and your 'Resurrection Coalition' can't do a thing." But nevertheless he runs for it.

The stranger I first met when everything went to hell puts his AK-47 over his shoulder, bayonet gleaming in the weak light, and says, "Well, kid, been a long time, hasn't it?"


	3. Grenade

**A/N: Sorry I've been off, but I've been lazy, to put it bluntly. That, and school. You know how it is.**

The stranger- the guy with the shotgun referred to him as X- seems to know Captain. Considering that all of Captain's relatives are supposed to be either dead or in Canada (which, according to the radio news, shut off its borders, built walls along the US borders, and basically had practically no infections), I don't think he's related.

"Captain, who is this guy?" I ask.

"He saved my ass when this all started in a subway tunnel." Captain replies. I get the feeling that there's something he's not telling us, but I don't press it. Captain's sensitive about what happened during the panic years.

X laughs. "Damn right. You kids look like you're in need of somewhere to stay, and lucky for you I'm one of the guys in charge of the Resurrection Coalition."

"What's that?"

"Only the biggest reclamation unit on the East Coast. Our main base is Washington and Lee University in Virginia, but we also set up bases in Boston, Norfolk, Charleston, and Atlanta."

I feel almost like crying with relief. We haven't known safety for so long. "Can we... can we really come with you?" I manage to stutter.

"Of course." X says. "We've got the _RCS Cassin Young_ docked in the river. It used to be a museum in Boston, called the USS Cassin Young, but we fixed it up, and it's now a supply runner. There's about fifteen isolated groups of survivors set up and down the East Coast and Gulf of Mexico from Florida to Maine, and we'll be hitting one of them _en route_ to the main base. They're a group in Delaware around a place called Slaughter Beach, and they need both weapons to keep the zombies off their backs and food. They've got crops up, but it'll still be some time before they can actually harvest them. I hope you kids are okay with that."

I'll put up with practically anything if it means I'll live an easy life, never have to bash another zombie, maybe go back to how things were before everything went to shit... "I think I speak for all of us when I say yes."

"Amen," puts in Artemis.

"Oh," says X, "and you kids can call me Magnum."

* * *

The _RCS Cassin Young_ is actually docked on the Delaware River, right in front of what's left of the Walt Whitman Bridge. I think I remember going to see it when I was four, or maybe five. Now, though, it's been converted from floating museum to badass zombie survival ship.

"How'd you get this thing working?" asks Jag. "I thought they pulled out the motors and whatnot."

"We outfitted it with new motors. We had a hell of a time building new ones to fit the spaces where the old ones were. It would've probably been easier to build a new ship, but what can I say?" Magnum grins. "I'm a sucker for historical stuff. There's a reason we raided the entire Library of Congress a few months ago."

"You said we were making a stop earlier. What do these Murder Beach people need?" asks Tiger, stretching out a hand to pull Wolf up to the deck.

"Slaughter Beach." Magnum corrects, hopping up onto the deck. "They need more food. Silly arses let their kids run loose in the crops, and a bunch of them pissed on them and broke them up to use for kid stuff. You probably remember how it was."

"All too well." Bones shakes his head. "Starting to forget, though. Thing is, we had to forget our childhood to live. That's just how it works."

I smile wryly and shake my head. "Do the guns on this thing work?"

"Some of them." Magnum says, turning to a hatch in the floor. "Oi! Lazybones! Get up here! We got some new kids!"

"I'm busy napping." comes a muffled reply.

"No, you're not, I can hear you talking!" Magnum replies, laughter in his voice.

"You know very well I talk in my sleep." the voice downstairs groans.

Magnum laughs. "Ah, Cassius thinks he's a riot. He'll be up here in a few hours, you can count on it. He's just exhausted from the night shift on guard while we were coming down here from Boston."

"Why did you come here, anyway?" I ask.

"We needed a lot more supplies, and Philadelphia was pretty early on to fall." Magnum scowls and scratches his nose. Pacing up to the front of the deck, he adds, "Plus, I... just had a hunch."

I get the feeling there's something he's not telling us, but before I can voice this he's already off. I can hear him shout, "Who wants to check out the main control room?"


End file.
